Paekakariki Mischief

Paekakariki Mischief

To heal after the death of Janet, her partner of 20 years, jeweller Marla Rivelli moves to Paekakariki, meeting baker Angelica Kitts and art forger Charles Harrier and attracting the attention of an ardent lesbian fledgling. She becomes involved with the village's struggle for traffic lights, which soon takes to the highway, and mischievous events move swiftly to mischievous conclusions.

Author description

Sandi Hall, although she was born in Cornwall, England, Sandi grew up on the Canadian prairies. Her first writing jobs were with CHQR Radio in Calgary, and then CFRN Television. Her writing career began in earnest with non-fiction articles for Canadian newspapers and My Golden West magazine. She has continued to write non-fiction. Sandi left Canada to return temporarily to England, leaving for Zambia eight months later, where she lived in Ndola for the next four years. She worked there as a senior copywriter and account manager for Barker McCormack Advertising. She moved to New Zealand in 1974, becoming a permanent resident, and found work in the advertising and public relations industry. It was in Auckland that she discovered a pool of feminist activists who were creating New Zealand’s first feminist magazine, Broadsheet. In the twenty one years of its existence, Broadsheet investigated everything from politics to cosmetics from the focus of how they affected women. Sandi promptly began to work voluntarily with this group. Sandi HallIn 1985, Sandi was privately commissioned to write a full length film script, Elysian Fields, set in Mexico, where she then went to live. Although both Tom Conti and Penelope Keith’s agents said their principals were interested in taking the roles Sandi had written for them, difficulties with finance meant the project was shelved. While living in the arts-minded town of San Miguel de Allende in northern Mexico, Sandi was commissioned by the New Zealand Listener to write an in-depth article on the position of women in Mexico. This eventually became the 8,000 word feature article A Struggle with Many Faces, eventually published in full by the Toronto Star in Canada. Moving back to New Zealand, Sandi discovered that the NZWPP had folded, and that Broadsheet had changed, eventually ending its 21 year publishing career. But the country was in the grip of impassioned protests occasioned by the prospects of the coming Springbok rugby tour. At the heart of the protests was the iniquity of racism. The tour did take place in spite of protest action, some of which was effective enough to half one match. This directly led Sandi to write Change of Heart, a stage play performed at Auckland’s beloved Mercury Theatre. Sandi HallIn the following year, Sandi was commissioned to write a made-for-television drama, Just Passing Through. Its theme is love thorugh time, suggesting that deep love can span the centuries but always brings immeasurably difficult challenge. The drama screened nationwide on New Zealand’s flagship television channel, Television One. A hiatus in her writing happened in the early 90’s because the shadow of tragedy fell across her family. Because of it, she returned to Canada for some time, later living in England in an effort to trace some family roots. Moving to the seaside village of Paekakariki, a well-known artists’ community, in 2005, Sandi wrote her second play, a comedy, Public Sex, which was performed at St. Peter’s Hall in that village, on one of only two remaining ‘raked’ stages in New Zealand. Public Sex explores themes of reincarnation, miracles, lesbian love, and the uses of gin. Demands of family mean Sandi is again living in England, where she is working on a light-hearted tale of art fraud, lust, love and community set in Paekakariki. Sandi HallShe returned to New Zealand in 1997, to find the country in the grip of millennium fever. Wondering what she could do to mark this epochal time, she conceived and produced the Millennium Festival of the Children, which saw a girl and a boy (ages 8- 12) from 88 countries come to New Zealand to be billeted with their peers while attending an 8 day Festival. This included the Children’s World Parliament, held in New Zealand’s Parliament Buildings, and producing the Children’s Charter of Children’s Rights. This document rests in the Parliamentary Library, and is believed to be the first charter of rights written by children for children. Its first point is ‘All children have the right to be safe.’ She settled in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, and began to teach WRIT101 at Victoria University there. This course specifically addresses the successful writing of academic essays.